Friday, July 15, 2011

Friday TV Comments From New Hampshire

We are opening up the blog for general NASCAR TV/media comments on Friday because there are a lot of things going on all day long.

NASCAR President Mike Helton will meet with the media on a video conference at 9AM ET from New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Expect many of the questions and quite a few of his answers to include the word "Kentucky." I am told this live video should be streamed on the NASCAR.com website.

The traffic disaster has overshadowed the race and continues to fester with no offer of refunds to fans with tickets who never made it to the track. SMI is offering a ticket exchange to other SMI races this season or the Kentucky Speedway Cup race in 2012.

Who knows what other questions may be asked or announcements also made at that time. We will update this post with those topics.

SPEED goes on the air at 11:30AM ET Friday and stays on the air all day long. Adam Alexander is going to anchor from the booth and John Roberts from the infield. Expect to see a ton of familiar faces throughout the day, including Darrell Waltrip on his last weekend out at the racetrack for a while.

The complete Friday TV line-up, including announcers, is listed on the left side of this page.

To add your comment about the Friday coverage or other news topics, just click on the comments button below. We will be answering questions and updating news on this post. Thanks for stopping by.

Did Helton watch Trackside the night before the race when Bruton said to CAR POOL 6,8 or TEN to a car? This was mentioned by many on Twitter & on local tv sports show. IMO JD, that PROVES BS knew there would not be enough parking. The end.

Nobody's addressed that either in NASCAR circles including the trackside hosts??!? nor why SMI will not give back cash refunds. Not at home so no access to SPEED & slow DSL for net.

Goes to show it was always about getting the ticket money in hand without any thought of the fans. They wonder why things are the way it is. Now Bruton has the money in hand he ain't going to give it up also he is not convincing anyone else to accept his exchange. He needs to really resolve this before it gets worse. He needs to stop being greedy and monopolizing most of the tracks on the circut. Taking Kentucky money to make up for other track losses I don't think the fans care. Especially since most probably spent what they didn't have just to attend.

Do right by people they will do right by you.

Plus horrible coverage of the race I understand Kyle Busch is 1st in rankings but there are other drivers I would like to see covered in the field. To hear them beat Kyle Busch's name like a drum beat sorry I'm not brain washed yet. The coverage has gotten worse stop trying to compete and get the respect of the football and basketball commentators. NASCAR is unique to itself, it is suffering from trying to make it into a football contender. They spent millions why not spend a few more and do this right. I guess they all have a lot of money to waste. I love Ralph Shaheen's coverage of Loudon two years ago, with Wally and Kyle in the both. They need good interesed commentators in the both who are excited about racing.

I would love to know do concentrating on one driver through a 3-4 hour race brings up the ratings, and get fans in their seats I would like to know?

Still at work but headed home early to catch qualifying. Did Helton talk about anything else?

Not surprised NASCAR is not happy that SMI put them in the position to have to answer those pesky questions. Notice that the ISC tracks couldn't wait to offer special discounts to people with KY tickets. That had to be painful to SMI.

I had sorta forgotten this, but the year before Richmond expanded its seating (which now, of course, they don't need...) they sent us a letter telling us very specifically that they were going to be very restrictive in how they let people tailgate. They had to prove they'd be able to park as many cars as they wanted to expand to. I think it may have been to get the county or state to approve it. Of course, people are very savvy, and as soon as the parkers have moved far enough away, everyone just rearranged their vehicles (I've seen some extremely determined & clever people....) But still--it enabled them to add more vehicles. They also said they would require people to have tickets to be in the lot, but I don't know if they ever started checking as we stopped going around that time. But when you think, KY had 10 years to figure it out...that's just really bad.

Talk about a dog and pony show, what was that this morning? We are looking into the events of last weekend at Kentucky? This was the BIG announcement, David Poole is spinning in his grave! The rest of the media must have been in shock! The basketball player got more press time than Bruton! Maybe there is "real" power in a tweet?

Glen, we had a massive issue the last time we went to Richmond. The police were running the parking lot enforcement and causing more trouble than it could ever possibly be worth to go there again so see a race.

Of course the public lots in NH are no joy either. We always park on someone's lawn. I'd rather pay to park than get locked into a lot and take 3 hrs to actually get to the road.

I did not listen to Mike Helton. As with the fools in Washington, I could care less about "talk". All that matters is action. I tried to listen to the beginning of both the Cup practice and for the NNS. I turned both off after a few minutes. With the Cup parctice, Durrl and Larry Mac were going through the blather we've heard a hundred times. Ditto for Petty with the NNS crowd. I'll have the last half of Cup qualifying on with the sound turned down while I do other things. Just think,I believe the baton gets passed to Espn/ABC for the next race????

Kyle Petty was the star of Nationwide practice. He was dishing it out and was right on the money. Especially when talking about how JJC and other female drivers dont get the attention that Danica does. That was the highlight of Speeds friday.

Thanks for the comments JD. The old ears really perked up when you said this would be DWs last weekend at the track. Will really be a blessing if we can return to watching qualifying and all the other good stuff like Trackside. We have'nt watched these shows all season because we just cannot handle that much silliness and bs. He should team up with Bruton Smith...they are both full of it.

Watching Sprint qualifying and it seems Adam is having his usual day.Adam listed the only four drivers that have been to every Cup race in New Hampshire. He got it wrong.Larry Mac had to correct him.When Brad K was on the track qualifying Adam said he had the fastest record last year but not this year. Larry Mac had to correct him. Brad went and beat his time he had last year and did set a new record.

I hear Raceday is going to feature Kyle B. Oh, boy.

I don't understand why Espn does not want to hire DW for the rest of the season. He is Mr Nascar. Without him being on Espn ratings may suffer.

I saw the highlights of the interview on Speed.. I was just waking up but Helton looked p'd off and mentioned somthing about the 2012 schedule. Wonder if there thinking about taking away a race from Kentucky

how are they going to make that better in one year???? I just dont see how that happens

Since Bruton says No Refunds to the 15,000 to 20,000 fans that did not get to see the race, and it looks like Nascar is ok with that, does that mean a track could turn away or not allow 12% of the fans to get to their seats and not have to worry about any refund but just keep their money?

I use to own a business and I would have loved to have the power to take a customers money and not have to give them anything in return. Profit, profit.

Why does The Daly Planet boycott Inside NASCAR? You cover every other major NASCAR TV program on the air, yet you ignore the most outspoken NASCAR program on the air. Name 1 show besides Inside NASCAR that airs unedited radio chatter and video? If you want to hear what is really being said on and off the track, there is only one program that delivers.

The show underwent a retool for season 2. Was there any mention of it? New host, new format, anyone? JD?? Bueller???

I know it's on a subscription network and not everyone is a subscriber, but if you are going to call this a legitimate critique of NASCAR TV coverage, you have to include ALL the major NASCAR TV coverage. It's taped in the NASCAR HOF Studios for crying out loud.

It seems after Season 1 you shyed away from covering the show at all. Does this mean the discussion limited to ESPN, TNT, SPEED and FOX? I don't think you should be covering "Channel 42's Raceweek" or "Bubba's Racin' Podcast", but the ratings should be enough to give credence to coverage. BTW, what are the ratings? Never seen them here so I don't know. Where can I find a good NASCAR TV blog? j/k

Sorry to get off topic and I'm not trying to plug or induce anyone to subscribe just to see the show, but I feel Inside NASCAR needs to be included in the discussion.

Nothing surprises me any more but Bruton's behavior is nothing short of disgusting. I hope the Nascar fans remember. I could name a number of Billionaires who have donated tens of millions to various charities on an ongoing basis. I was fortunate on several occaisons to have a beer with one of them. He was a down-to-earth, humble guy who took a chance, starting with nothing. Tens of thousands of people today have good paying jobs because of him. Bruton is an egotistical bully who should be ashamed to show his face after what he did. How would you like to do business with him?

I was away from all this until yesterday so I did not really know about the traffic stuff, but I did listen to Helton. Now, I fear overkill. Tons will be spent on traffic and next time at Kentucky the crowds will not be there. This was the first time so you have to consider that impact. Just the reverse of the Space Shuttle thing. For years now you could go watch a launch and have the place nearly to yourself. For this last one, though, they said a million people showed up.

RPM--I *do* believe the new format was mentioned on here. Based on previous conversations even with the old format I don't think many folks were interested in the show. And with it being shorter now I don't think that would draw others. IIRC, from the previous articles when the show first started, most folks who watched already had Showtime in their package. There may have been 1 or 2 folks who switched for a minute to check it out but it wasn't a lot of folks.

I get a good enough feel between folks tweeting what's being said on the radios, write ups from the reporters, what's aired on TV, etc. I've never had a "need to know more" feel from any of that. I can put the F Bombs in what's being said myself. So the show isn't a draw for me just for that. Now the ORIGINAL show definitely. But if they're trying to sell a show because you can hear F Bombs there's something seriously wrong there.

AR--yup the entire town is about 230 folks. If they give into his demands & the folks don't show then the taxpayers will be beyond ticked off. I think he's banking on them balking thus using that to get Vegas it's 2nd date.

Sorry to weigh in late on the KY issues. Been away from the TV and computer for a while. Was going to say that I just got home from the race (live normally 45 minutes from the track), but that would be piling on.

Couple of points I hope folks don't forget about this - although traffic flow and control was the most offensive and the one getting all the attention and what everyone is focusing on, there were other failures - not enough toilets and not enough concessions - that fall squarely on the shoulders of SMI.

They can talk up a pitiful interstate system as being the primary cause of last weekend's woes, but I-71 didn't create these two problems. Not enough food, drink (at a track that doesn't permit carry-in coolers, no less) and porta-potties is nothing but either poor planning, poor execution or both on the part of SMI.

Have to wonder why?

They can say they underestimated the traffic and maybe they did, but I'd think with years of experience at seven different tracks, hosting tons of events over the years at each, plus acquiring this track which has run races there for numerous years and knowing how many folks are coming (which they did-said it was a sellout, and they should know), they pretty much know how much food and drink will be purchased and how much they'll need to expel and what it would take to handle each.

So how did they miss this boat, a boat totally under their control, this badly? And from stories I've heard from those who did make it there in time (so the incoming traffic tie up was not a factor in their weekend) it was pretty bad.

Also, haven't heard of anyone reporting on "the plan". Was last weekend a result of a poor plan executed properly, a good plan executed poorly or a poor plan executed poorly? Can't make that call until someone other than SMI looks at "the plan" and to date I've not heard anyone pressing on that issue.

We have a saying around here, "He knew it was a snake when he picked it up.". Mr. Smith knew what it was and the surrounding infrastructure when he bought the track well over a year ago. Did I-71 suddenly get pitiful in the week leading up to the race so SMI couldn't react? Don't think so. So why didn't the plan address those deficiencies they now attribute to causing last weekend's debacle?

Plus, since the race one of the things he's asking for is an airport. Someone please ask him how taking up more surrounding land for something like that is going to help 5,000-20,000 more folks get in next year?

This along with a lot of other things about this just doesn't line up.

Hope someone presses the matter, but so far it doesn't look like it's going to happen.